Book Review | Al Qaeda In Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad

CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence
Studies in Intelligence, 2006

Al Qaeda In Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad

Lorenzo Vidino.(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006), 403 pp., end of chapter notes, maps, index. Foreword by Steven Emerson.

Reviewed by Hayden B. Peake, curator of the CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection

The Investigative Project is a private organization that monitors terrorist activities throughout the world. It is headed by terrorism expert Steven Emerson, who wrote the foreword for this book. Author Lorenzo Vidino, a lawyer who speaks seven languages, is Emerson's deputy. Al Qaeda In Europe has four parts. The first and most disturbing, describes the lengthy development, recruitment, education, training, and financing of radical Islamic cells and networks throughout Europe. Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of this portion is the discussion of the very successful, albeit cynical, al-Qa'ida policy of invoking the power of the converted in recruiting disaffected Christians and Muslims with passports to their cause. These super adherents reduce the potential utility of profiling techniques in preventing them from achieving martyrdom. Vidino also documents the work of radical groups that motivate the faithful in the mosques: "only a violent jihad will bring about the dream of making the word of Allah the only religion in the world." In Britain, the group al-Muhajiroun, seeks "to turn Britain into an Islamic country following a Taliban-style interpretation of Islamic law." (24)

The other three parts of the book are devoted to case studies of the major Islamic networks and their operations in Europe and the Middle East. Included are the Algerian network and its recin plot; al-Qa'ida in Italy, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The book concludes with analysis of the Madrid bombings and the Dutch Van Gogh assassination. Undiscouraged by setbacks, these groups take a long view, says Vidino. They justify their barbaric acts as an "Islamic rite of revenge." (326) The future for radical Islamists in Europe, if the past is prologue, is optimistic. Vidino argues persuasively that Europe no longer has to import terrorists; it is "growing its own." (359) Finally he warns that events in Europe have a way of affecting the United States. Well documented, well told, and alarming.